1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a monitoring control apparatus, a monitoring system, a monitoring method, a wireless communication apparatus, a wireless communication system, and a wireless communication method. More particularly, the present invention relates to a monitoring control apparatus, a monitoring system, a monitoring method, a wireless communication apparatus, a wireless communication system, and a wireless communication method, which can perform communication by using communication systems having different communication speeds.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, in a place, such as a house, a work place and a school, where a person stays for a predetermined time (hereinafter, simply referred to as “house”), various methods of managing security have been suggested. For example, a security system has been already put to practical use in which various sensors are provided in a house or in the periphery of the house so as to monitor the states of the house inside and outside. Alternatively, in such a security system, a camera for imaging the states of the house inside and outside may be provided.
In general, the security system has a controller for controlling a plurality of sensors provided in the house inside and outside, the controller being connected to the individual sensors for communication. The controller is configured to perform predetermined security management on the basis of the detection results of the sensors.
Further, in such a security system, normally, the controller performs wire communication with the sensors or performs wireless communication with the sensors by using a specified low-power radio communication system (a specified low-power radio communication).
Moreover, in other security systems, there is a case in which cameras are provided so as to image the states of the house inside and outside. The cameras perform wire or wireless communication with the controller. Image data imaged by the camera has a large data amount, and thus, when the camera performs wireless communication with the controller, a wireless communication system (wireless LAN) based on IEEE 802.11b standard or the like is used. However, the sensors other than the cameras perform wire communication with the controller (for example, refer to JP-A-2004-128821 and JP-A-2004-194111).
However, when the controller performs wire communication with the sensors or the cameras, since communication lines are provided to places where the sensors or the cameras are installed, the places where the sensors or the cameras are installed are limited. For this reason, the controller preferably performs wireless communication with the sensors or the cameras.
When the specified low-power radio communication is used for the wireless communication between the controller, and the sensors and the cameras, the controller can perform wireless communication with the sensors, but transmission and reception of image data imaged by the cameras cannot be performed. That is, the controller can not perform communication with the cameras.
On the other hand, when the wireless LAN system is used for the wireless communication between the controller, and the sensors and the cameras, transmission and reception of data having large data amount, such as the image data imaged by the cameras, can be performed, and also the communication with other sensors can be performed.
When the communication is performed by the wireless LAN system, the sensors and the cameras need to check whether some data is received from the controller, even in a standby state. Thus, the controller continuously performs communication with the sensors and the cameras. For this reason, power consumption in individual terminal is significantly increased. In particular, when a battery is used as a power supply for driving a sensor or a camera, since power consumption is high, battery life is drastically made short, and thus it has no practical use. Therefore, the sensor or the camera needs to be connected to a power supply such as an AC (alternating-current) power, for driving the sensor or the camera. However, also in this case, the places where the sensors or the cameras are installed are still limited.
That is, a monitoring control apparatus and a wireless communication apparatus have not been proposed yet in which wireless communication by using different communication systems such as the specified low-power radio communication and the wireless LAN system are performed, and in which the communication system to be used is changed according to data to be sent and received.